Smart Rhythm
by the butler
Summary: Koutaro says Akaba is not smart. Akaba says that Koutaro's rhythm is different from his. One thing they do agree on, though, is amefuto.contains spoilers for fall tournament.


"**Smart Rhythm"**

Eyeshield 21 fanfiction by the butler

Koutaro and Akaba (Bando Spiders)

(Spoilers to the Fall Tournament, some cursing because Koutaro can get fired up easily)

**disclaimer**: the author claims no ownership of the characters and their creative world poorly portrayed in this fanfiction.

* * *

Koutaro is smart. Damn smart. He'd say so himself.

Koutaro is also a 100 percent great kicker. In fact he's the best high school kicker in the best kicker _amefuto_ high school team there is. He'd spit fight you if you dare say otherwise, damned Deimon's Musashi or not.

Koutaro also has great hair. He combs it every other minute. He combs it even if it's in place and looking fantastic. He has a switch comb (like a switch knife, only it has a comb instead of a blade, it's pretty smart) that rests in the back pocket of his smart red nice fit jeans whenever he doesn't he need it (which is every other minute).

Koutaro dresses smart as well. He wears a smart red nice fit pair of jeans with a black and white shirt nicely tucked in, but he loves his patent leather shoes best (they have kicked many a can into trash bins with 100 percent accuracy and precision, which makes them smart).

Koutaro also has smart tastes in women, which is to say he's smart for liking Julie, who is the manager of the best kicker _amefuto_ high school team there is. He's pretty sure she joined the team just to spend more time with him, since they've been friends since he can remember, and to watch his rise as the best high school kicker in the whole country.

All in all, Koutaro is smart. Damn smart.

* * *

Koutaro thinks that Akaba, on the other hand, is not smart. For one, he's pretty monochromatic- red contacts and red dyed hair. He wears long sleeves and violet slacks and crucifix necklaces and lug around that stupid electric guitar which plays loudly even without an amplifier and wear weird shaped sunglasses no matter what time of the day or night it is. Not smart!

Koutaro wants to spit at Akaba every time the latter start spouting stupid nonsense about rhythms and music and what-the-fuck-ever and try to connect that to _amefuto_, in fact to everything distinctly non-musical, and not make sense at all. Not smart.

Koutaro hates the fact that everyone practically bows before Akaba just because he was last year's Tokyo MVP, as if that would ever be anything compared to being the best damned high school kicker in the country (Musashi be damned), and how Akaba just take everything in stride and act as if it's the most natural thing in the world. And how Akaba doesn't even need to exert any effort since he's so fucking blessed- be it academic, economic, physical or American football related. He hates the most the fact that despite all that, Akaba has the gall to be carefree and just strum that stupid electric guitar that comes from nowhere and plays loudly without an amplifier. Not smart!

Koutaro absolutely despises the fact that Akaba, that stuck-up, rich, obnoxious _shoujo-manga-reject _weirdo had the temerity to leave, no, abandon Bando Spiders for some lame ass scholarship thing in some godforsaken school, taking the rest of the starting team with him and almost effectively crippling the Bando Spiders (only almost, since Koutaro rejected the same lame ass scholarship thing the bastards were shoving up his nose) and effecting the resignation of their amateur yet cool coach. But that's not all- Akaba had the fucking gall to come back and in the face of the effects of his leaving expect him, Koutaro, to just welcome him back into the_ amefuto_ team like a white knight on his fucking high horse. Just like that. Not smaaaaaaaaaaart!!!

But on top of all the things that Koutaro hates about Akaba is the fact that he, Koutaro-the best high school kicker in the whole of Japan and the most smart person he's known since, ever- actually grudgingly agrees, in the smallest, deepest part of his heart which he will never admit to anyone (even Julie), that Akaba belongs in the Bando Spiders. And that despite all the near-godly effort that Koutaro and the rest of the kick team has poured into resuscitating the Spiders, Akaba remains its ace and the team's head, and had Akaba never returned to them then the team would never have made it as far as that grudge match for third place against Deimon, even if Akaba only played in their last game. Not smart at all.

It's a good thing, Koutaro thinks, that he'll never admit that to anyone, even Julie, or else he'd be not smart.

* * *

Akaba is an artist; he knows this in his soul.

Akaba has rhythm and hears the music of everything in his head, whether it be school, love or football it has a song, and Akaba hears it clear as crystal, each note sharp, distinct and sweet. His rhythm is smooth and cleanly played without a note out of tune, and so he is calm and sensitive.

Akaba is an artist, and as an artist he knows that his inner self shows in whatever he does, so he dyed his hair red and wears red contacts, because he is passionate in whatever he does. A few weeks after first wearing contacts he started wearing sunglasses because it disrupts the rhythm of his life every time he has to go looking for a lost contact on the floors of their school.

Akaba's first love is music, no matter what else he excels in. His guitar is like the embodiment of his soul, and like his non-corporeal soul it is with him anywhere and anytime, and can play loud and clear even without an amplifier because souls are like that. If he tries to explain this to anyone, least of all Koutaro, it just ends up muddled in the process, so instead he plays it to them (which actually only makes it even more muddled, since it seems that no one else understands the music of Akaba's soul).

But despite the fact that no one else understands the music of his soul, Akaba never thinks that no one would ever understand it, so he keeps on playing, because he thinks everyone can understand each other's music, if they only tried to listen.

Akaba understands that he is blessed- be it academic, economic, physically or American football related. He tried to be all _Byronic_ (moody and sad) about it at first, but it exhausted him so he stopped. Besides, it didn't suit his rhythm. What he knows he does best, he does best as he can, and there is no reason for him to pretend otherwise. That's just being, well, stupid. It wasn't a surprise at all when he got that Tokyo MVP award. And he also understands that it is against his rhythm to look down on other people whose rhythms were not so suited to the crushing bass of life, and so he extends a helping hand (the one not holding the guitar pick) to anyone who asks. And if he ever felt his rhythm disrupted by how other people acted as if in constant awe of him, there's always his guitar to soothe it back in place.

* * *

Not so with Koutaro. Akaba knew, from the very first meeting in the amefuto club room, that Koutaro's rhythm was different from his. The 50's throwback shirt, the ridiculous snug fit red pants, and those patent leather shoes that should have been much scuffed due to incessant kicking of cans into trash bins but were not, were not Akaba's genre. More so the hair and the obsessive combing with the switch comb that Akaba secretly suspects to be specially-made to the kicker's tastes. And those wild, lashes fringed eyes and lips in permanent moue combined with that ridiculous posing the kicker was apt to be just too different a sound to Akaba's song.

And that smart/not smart dichotomy that Koutaro used to differentiate all things under the sun… The kicker is definitely following his own personal beat unlikely to be understood by anyone else.

Akaba thinks, after much musing, that Koutaro's rhythm was unpredictable and given to explosive riffs, now and then mellowing with some acoustic guitar and then hurrying up to some frenzied piano playing. Perhaps the kicker truly was a throwback to old school rocking and rolling. But despite that Akaba has never seen, nor heard, anything as beautiful as a football that Koutaro has just kicked arcing in the air and flying through the goal posts. The melody from the run-up to the touching leather through the arcing football to the landing on the grass is enough to make Akaba go "_fuuu…"_ (Only in his head though, because Koutaro is already big-headed as it is, he doesn't need any encouragement coming from Akaba to get it any bigger).

Akaba has to constantly shield his guitar from Koutaro's spit attacks, despite their manager and sempai's efforts to hold the crazy kicker back, whenever he tries to explain to the kicker the rhythm that underlies everything in life. It seems that Koutaro does not appreciate his efforts at all, but it is mutual, since Akaba sometimes doesn't understand what Koutaro is saying or acting like. This is because Koutaro is simple and an action man, not an artistic soul at all (except when kicking, when Koutaro becomes the purest artistic soul, Musashi or no Musashi), and what he does and says doesn't say anything about his inner self until you try to understand. It took Akaba some time to understand the reason Koutaro's eyes blazed with anger under that rain that day he left Bando. He had disappointed Koutaro, who didn't even want to be disappointed in whatever Akaba did in the first place, making the disappointment double, one for him and another for Koutaro himself.

So he came back. Not purely because of Koutaro, but for everything the wild eyed kicker stood for- single minded dedication to a goal, hard-earned skills and admiration, self- respect and passion… some of them he never had to work for because they came to him so easily, some of them striking a note in the rhythm of his soul. And he wanted Koutaro to understand this, so he bowed and didn't try to evade the kick to his face that he could see from a mile away and could, with just a small move of his head, evade. In the best kicker high school _amefuto_ team in the whole of Japan, there may be two aces- a tight end magician and a 100 percent accurate kicker, but only one of them was the heart and soul of the team. To Akaba this became even more apparent that one chance he had to play in the Fall Tournament, when he saw Koutaro standing with his head high, while the tears fell continuously down his face, vowing that next year, the best kicker team would win. And all Akaba could do was to echo that passion, saying yeah, next year for sure.

Because underneath the different rhythms and the different songs their souls played, Akaba understood that both he and Koutaro moved to the same thumping bass. Different speeds though, but still the same basic beat. Akaba does say this to Koutaro, and it amuses him that Koutaro never understands it, because it's said in the best language Akaba knows- through guitar interludes.


End file.
